Why not just give the human the subrace of the different cities they used to have (Arathi, Kultiras, Stromgarde, etc...) and just give them different faction, like the Arathi humans look like asians, the Stromgarde are african-america and so on...

Why not just give the human the subrace of the different cities they used to have (Arathi, Kultiras, Stromgarde, etc...) and just give them different faction, like the Arathi humans look like asians, the Stromgarde are african-america and so on...

I don't believe such subraces exist in WoW, and doing it along those lines would be ridiculous since Arathor is the wellspring of many of the later nations. We're not talking about huge time frames here, either, nor are there evolutionary "steroids" available to the humans like the Well; the Curse of Flesh had already run its course by this point, too. Plus, these regions are all broadly similar in their climate, with Stormwind being more temperate and Lordaeron colder; IRL, and in games like TES, you have a broad variety of climates and other evolutionary pressures combining to give different races or whatever you wish to call them. You could do what Blizzard did with Gilneans, and limit the appearance options for each subrace and subtly change some features, and even give different subrace perks, but why re-write their lore entirely for an auxilliary feature?

Last edited by Zathrendar; 2014-03-16 at 08:31 PM.

Start trying to work out who deserves what, and before long you’ll spend the rest of your days weeping for each and every person in the world.

Add to this the fact that Blizzard tends to reserve some cultures related to particular ethnicities, e.g. the Chinese, with non-human races, such as the Pandaren, and there's even less need for it. Human cultures in WoW largely correspond with medieval to early Renaissance European cultures, and I think it's a very convenient way to handle things.

The Azotha would make an interesting subrace if Blizzard provided the lore for it, but that's about it, really.

Start trying to work out who deserves what, and before long you’ll spend the rest of your days weeping for each and every person in the world.

Would this mean we finally get to see more customization for playable races, a chance to see more updated models with the features like the Mag'har, Fel Orcs and finally see a female Fel Orc. Dragonmaw, and Blackrock would be interesting for another skin for Orcs as a whole.

More often I think about it the customizations can have more stuff and nothing has to be major changed.

There are easy ways to make different elves of the same race, yonder vision seemith limited here for some reason. I don't think they will ever carry a new expansion as a new player race, but as a new customization feature with added body types or posture tweaks or ethnic tattoos or something like store bought player races, they offer a lot of interesting areas to speculate. Their existence would require novelty, so citing precedent and what is obvious is futile I guess. They will be something unusual if they happen. But that is kind of the point, to expand the game into something it hasn't done yet.

In a game based on cartoon anatomy, an entire race could be based on an extreme twist in anatomy, speculatively.
We can dance if we want to. Expand your horizons. These are all just human males. Some use entirely unique models, some tweaked models, but are all still human males in the same video game world.

Personally I'd be very conservative about sub race options, and have them simply as skin variations. I also don't think it's a good idea to give every race a subrace just for the sake of symmetry - some make sense in lore, some don't. I mean I love looking at these mockups and it's fun to think about crazy options but it'd be very weird ingame. Here's my thoughts:

Human - Azotha are hypothetical and probably look just like humans, Vrykul are hostile, so no subraces IMO.
Dwarf - Wildhammer and possibly Dark Iron are plausible due to the Council of the Three Hammers.
Gnome - leper gnomes are insane, mechagnomes are funny but really, gotta be a no.
Night Elf - I guess Highborne skins what with the induction of the Shen'dralar? Although isn't this mostly already possible?
Worgen - you could maybe argue for a non-Gilnean pack such as the Bloodfang or the pack from Felwood (forget the name), but that's odd since they look the same but should have a different starting zone.

Orc - Dragonmaw would make sense, maybe a few other skins. Not entirely sold on Mag'har.
Troll - I think Revantusk are in the Horde now so I guess some Forest Troll skins. They're quite a bit different from standard troll models though.
Tauren - if anything Grimtotem seems less likely now.
Forsaken - not really happy with the idea of Elf Forsaken. Frankly I feel like their lore is a bit of a grey area to begin with.
Goblin - Bilgewater Goblins are the only Horde-aligned faction, things like Gilgoblins are all hostile. So I'd say no.

As I've said before, High Elves should be either a full race or nothing.

Originally Posted by Maxilian

While many elements differ between the RPG and game canon, this is especially true for information on arcane and divine magic. Though the origin of the sources of magic is the same, their implementation and effect on the world is wholly different. Most notably, in the RPG, Divine magic is overall good, while arcane magic is overall bad. In canon, arcane magic still has more corruptive elements than divine magic, but it is not corruptive in and of itself.

That's your answer

No I mean in main lore. Wasn't the corruptive power of Arcane magic the reason for the fall of Azshara and the Highborne? Or is that retconned now?

Originally Posted by Skayth

Well Shit... what about the original orc warlocks? Oh right they were shamans. Deep down, all magic goes back to the arcane.

Weren't they technically Necrolytes rather than Warlocks? Used more necromantic powers. That may also be retconned though.

Originally Posted by shoc

Hold up, physicality wise, what is the difference between a Blood Elf Death Knight and a San'layn? Both are Blood Elves who were raised from death by the Lich King and granted cool undead powers. The only difference is that they belong to different factions within the Scourge and one was able to break free while the other was chained the the LK's will. Any argument towards San'layn not being accepted into the Horde, for whatever reasons such as the Sunwell, Blood Elf's not accepting them, etc, can also be applied to Blood Elf Death Knights.

In lore, Blood Elf Death Knights probably ARE the San'layn.

To be honest the lore justification for a lot of DK races is pretty flimsy. Blizzard just wanted everyone to be able to be DKs.

Originally Posted by Thaladhrun

Just release more goddamn models already...

IKR?

Originally Posted by Thaladhrun

I'd be sad if they chose to add half-elves over high elves. I hate hybrids, especially for fantasy races with very little relation to one another. People like myself, who want to play high elves, want elves, not just humans with slightly pointier than usual ears.

Hadjikostas did seem to have HE in mind when discussing subraces, though.

But yeah let's not get into that whole halfbreed genetic gymnastics thing haha.

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Originally Posted by KrakHed

There are no surviving Azotha at all that we know of.

It's not so ludicrous to assume that if Azotha still survived in pockets somewhere, they could retain some ancestral phenotypes lost in the main Human populace.

It is not so impossible to imagine that other Vrykul variants may have had the same problem with undersized offspring that would be shipped off with the rest.

It seems to be strongly implied that the Azotha became modern humans though. Like why there are no pockets of Cro-Magnons today. And I got the impression most of the Vrykul->Human transformation had already occurred at that point.

Originally Posted by shoc

In terms of the Azotha, I envisioned them to be viking themed Humans. I'm saying, big beards, snarlier faces, runic tattoos, hairier chests. They don't necessarily have to be larger or blue. I will post the mockup of a female Azotha that I did a while back when I get home.

I assumed that they were completely separated from Vrykul culture when they first became a separate race, so in terms of look/costume/theme the shift was abrupt.

But hey, Blizzard can do what they want with the idea. I do like your mockup!

Illidan eventually coming back is exactly why I think an Illidari style skin (tattoos, green eyes) would be a perfect fit as a Night Elf Customization Style. To contrast, a Malfurion Shan'do Skin, with Leafy beards and Antlers would make for a cool style as well. While they aren't true sub-races, what are sub-races if not just customization styles.

Man I want druidic mutations to not be stuck with my item making it display. Would love cosmetic glyphs for this, like we've talked about for glowing eyes for different classes once you're a level 60 superhero, you unlock the super hero costmetic slot which is tied up with racial and class cosmetics. Beyond glowing eyes of difference colors for appropriate classes, you could finally for instance have a blademaster.

Imagine this for warriors:

"Glyph of Warbanner". The Warrior now has a warbanner displayed on their back at all times using either the icon of your race, faction, or guild to choose from. When casting warbanner, your banners will also appear as sisters to the banner on your back which you can target and charge towards. The AOE's buff effect from each banner can now be emitted in a mobile manner from the warrior while casting. ( It only surrounds the banner now, doesn't it? Correct me if I do be wrong, me hearties.)

"Glyph of Mirror Image": While casting bladestorm you can have multiple clones of yourself appear which the enemy player cannot discern from the real target. Fuck balance lol.

I don't think we should be limiting this idea so painfully as many here do, and watering down the project with so many vague and token variations just for the sake of balanced variation selections. This should all be one massive aspect of expanded customization in general, hairstyles, racial and ethnic decorum and body modification, hairstyles and beards, jewelry and ornamentation, body paint, with transmog being armor class limited I think even eyepatches and as I've shown possibly even the night elf eye binding/tattoo thing could be covered there. A character with an eyepatch should be PERMANENT, Warhammer Online was great for a number of these reasons. You could have an number of eyepatches, choose which eye etc. You could hold your stave while casting and it was incorporated into your casting animations. You held your weapons while idle and while walking and running in context appropriate ways, balancing your blade over your shoulder, using and leaning and plodding along with your stave like a real walking stick when walking and gripping it over your legs or in the air aloft while running.

But that's not part of character customization, just stuff I want to see improved in WOW. Man, sheathes and holsters and quivers. At least quivers are on a list somewhere. Would be great to have weapon straps or things and not magically glue stuff to you. I've never let minor clipping issues bother me while I let my imagination fill in the blanks or ignore the overlaps, but this is a pet issue.

But I think "SUBRACES" should not be incorporated into expanded customization in general, not every race should have them, they should just be addition skin tones for the most part, anything model wise HAS TO HAVE PANDAREN FIDELITY. They can't use the older stuff. This means new animations too. "Good enough" will not be acceptable for Blizzard in this area. Rather than water down the impact of your choices with nuanced choices, they make a few large grand variations to choose from, and this will forever be the backbone of their philosophy. Slowly it seems some more novel ideas may be on the horizon concerning these issues, we have it confirmed expanded customization is coming in WOD's lifetime, what that means isn't clear. Hairstyles so far are confirmed. I betcha we will also see some skin shades and facial tats and ornamentation.

Gnome - leper gnomes are insane, mechagnomes are funny but really, gotta be a no.

There could easily come with a good and simple reason why we get Leeper gnomes, like they got "cured" but only the mind and not the body or that the player got corrupted but didn't lost their mind(well we spend a lot of time under radiation so we could have some problems here and there)

Night Elf - I guess Highborne skins what with the induction of the Shen'dralar? Although isn't this mostly already possible?

Actually in Cata a group of HB joined the NE, that's why we have NE mages

Worgen - you could maybe argue for a non-Gilnean pack such as the Bloodfang or the pack from Felwood (forget the name), but that's odd since they look the same but should have a different starting zone.

Well i don't know about that, i think they could add NE worgens as you may know the first worgens were NE and the first that came to Gilneas were NE worgens

Orc - Dragonmaw would make sense, maybe a few other skins. Not entirely sold on Mag'har.

Why not Mag'har? they are easier to explain, they have been in the horde since BC, Thrall gets married with a Mag'har and we even got a Mag'har warchief (Garrosh)
Note: Remenebr Mag'har are the brown skin orcs not the half-orc-ogres

Troll - I think Revantusk are in the Horde now so I guess some Forest Troll skins. They're quite a bit different from standard troll models though.

Yeah, that's true but IMO it shouldn't be a problem

Tauren - if anything Grimtotem seems less likely now.

A group of Grimtotem taurens stayed in the horde and didn't followed Agatha, so it can be possible (We could get Taunka too... i know you're a little against the idea of different models, but here the only difference is the head )

Forsaken - not really happy with the idea of Elf Forsaken. Frankly I feel like their lore is a bit of a grey area to begin with.

Not really grey area, in Lordaeron there were many elfs (high elfs and half-elves) there too, that's why is not weird, it has also been questioned a lot why the forsakens are only humans

Goblin - Bilgewater Goblins are the only Horde-aligned faction, things like Gilgoblins are all hostile. So I'd say no.

Well the Gilgoblins creator is a Bilgewater Goblin, so they could said that some stayed with him and/or he created more and fixed the "intelligence problem"

No I mean in main lore. Wasn't the corruptive power of Arcane magic the reason for the fall of Azshara and the Highborne? Or is that retconned now?

Nope, it was mainly because of the use of arcane magic they became arrogant and it lored the Burning Legion and Azshara herself saw herself as someone "perfect" and the only person that was good enough for was Sargeras (weird right?)

In lore, Blood Elf Death Knights probably ARE the San'layn.

To be honest the lore justification for a lot of DK races is pretty flimsy. Blizzard just wanted everyone to be able to be DKs.

No they are not they are different but yes i agree that Blizzard came with some weird lore justification to make everyone DK

Would this mean we finally get to see more customization for playable races, a chance to see more updated models with the features like the Mag'har, Fel Orcs and finally see a female Fel Orc. Dragonmaw, and Blackrock would be interesting for another skin for Orcs as a whole.

More often I think about it the customizations can have more stuff and nothing has to be major changed.

We've had multiple artist and art team lead confirm a patch in WOD will have more brand new hairstyles and other customization in WOD's lifetime. They've also confirmed the ethnic lore based skin colors and tattos are a project they've been wanting to do for many years. Now is as good of a time as any, and with all the focus on updating NPC models as well as players, it's a very good time to be speculating for their plausible realization.

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Originally Posted by Thaladhrun

Add to this the fact that Blizzard tends to reserve some cultures related to particular ethnicities, e.g. the Chinese, with non-human races, such as the Pandaren, and there's even less need for it. Human cultures in WoW largely correspond with medieval to early Renaissance European cultures, and I think it's a very convenient way to handle things.

The Azotha would make an interesting subrace if Blizzard provided the lore for it, but that's about it, really.

I would much rather see Vrykul as a playable race for an expansion, especially with Robinson's love for all things Norse and Celtic, he would go crazy with lovely creations left and right with Pandaren fidelity player character variation among the Vrykul, Make them as you can and go crazy with the "giant" thing with as many distinctions as you can cram to make them more than different looking humans, anymore than blood elves or night elves are too similar.

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Originally Posted by Mormolyce

Personally I'd be very conservative about sub race options, and have them simply as skin variations. I also don't think it's a good idea to give every race a subrace just for the sake of symmetry - some make sense in lore, some don't. I mean I love looking at these mockups and it's fun to think about crazy options but it'd be very weird ingame.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Mormolyce

To be honest the lore justification for a lot of DK races is pretty flimsy. Blizzard just wanted everyone to be able to be DKs.

I think that's mostly a bullshit gross misunderstanding of the player base. For one, the goblins we play all fit on a boat.
For another, ANY race who fought the Scourge was absorbed by the Scourge, and the scoured both the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, there is a pretty easy way to claim just about any race in this game can be a DK beyond lore restrictions.

Any race that got killed by the Scourge or Forsaken units in WC3 or the era of the Third War can be a DK technically.

Any race in the lore that could possibly have been working as a mercenary could have fought the Scourge somewhere in the world and have been raised as a DK. That means all those goblin and orge mercenaries in WC3 Arthas used. I think people are too quick to cite "flimsy lore bending" when they simply have a far too rigid grasp of the lore themselves.

It's a behavior I find interesting in "fan" communities, honing our little encyclopedias and always ready to show what we know, it get's into a lot of psychology I'm not by any means immune from I find interesting to discuss. They made a special exception for the worgen and even explain it to you in the quest experience when you make a Worgen DK that you're from the Grizzly Hills Worgen of Northrend.

I personally theorize this psychological proclivity for catching Blizzard in messing up their own lore creates "itchy trigger finger syndrome".

And Blizzard can make them exist again if they wish/if the community asks for them.

yeah but the azotha were pretty much replaced by the vrykul.

theres really nothing known about them other than "they lived in stranglethorn a long time ago and had some sort of unknown connection with the titans and their human decendants named azeroth after them"

they could bring them back if blizzard really wanted to but when someone asked copeland about them on twitter i got the impression blizzard didnt even remember them and just brushed it off as "oh thats just rpg stuff"

"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon

I think that's mostly a bullshit gross misunderstanding of the player base. For one, the goblins we play all fit on a boat.
For another, ANY race who fought the Scourge was absorbed by the Scourge, and the scoured both the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, there is a pretty easy way to claim just about any race in this game can be a DK beyond lore restrictions.

Any race that got killed by the Scourge or Forsaken units in WC3 can be a DK technically. Any race in the lore that could possibly be working as a mercenary could have fought the Scourge somewhere int he world and have been raised as a DK. I think people are too quick to cite flimsy lore bending when they simply have a far too rigid grasp of the lore themselves. It's a behavior I find interesting in "fan" communities, honing our little encyclopedias and always ready to show what we know, it get's into a lot of psychology I'm not by any means immune from I find interesting to discuss. They made a special exception for the worgen and even explain it to you in the quest experience when you make a Worgen DK that you're from the Grizzly Hills Worgen of Northrend.

Call me racist but I find it hard to believe the Lich King stumbled across a pink haired gnome girl and thought "Such unbridled power... I must have you for my own!!!".

And goblins must've been like "hmm my stock portfolio has been doing terribly... WELCOME TO THE ARMY OF THE DEAD!".

i also hope that now that we are getting new models blizzard fulfills their promise of "every race and every gender needs mohawks" :P

"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon

I'd rather wait for Bolvar's inevitable return, he likely has the Vrykul as his favored servants I'd think and he is now likely a neutral faction based leader we will be dealing with as an ally in the future, a Hades like figure. And it's a good time to introduce Vrykul as a player race able to carry an expansion IMO.

hey shoc, once all the races have been revealed you should do a photoshop of all the races with mohawks for your grand finale

"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon

I'd rather wait for Bolvar's inevitable return, he likely has the Vrykul as his favored servants I'd think and he is now likely a neutral faction based leader we will be dealing with as an ally in the future, a Hades like figure. And it's a good time to introduce Vrykul as a player race able to carry an expansion IMO.

IMO the Vrykul should be added in a South Sea expansion, well we know that they dissapeared from Northrend and went somewhere to do something (wow how specific ), but we don't know where did they went or why they went there, also we know that the Naga have problems with the Kvaldir... so IMO that will be the best way to introduce them and show Naga vs Vrykul and at the same time more Horde vs Alliance but with these 2 races as the head of the assault

Call me racist but I find it hard to believe the Lich King stumbled across a pink haired gnome girl and thought "Such unbridled power... I must have you for my own!!!".

And goblins must've been like "hmm my stock portfolio has been doing terribly... WELCOME TO THE ARMY OF THE DEAD!".

It's selective judgement and indeed profiling to disregard these as real people in this world beyond the 4th wall breaking jokes they are typical for depicting. There are gnomes and goblins with martial skill, like it or not. They are not hindered by genetic malfunctions as human dwarves are, with the hip issues and bone development. They are nimble, and are better viewed as halflings or hobbits or any number of nimble but smaller than homo sapiens primate. Brute force as well does not make you good a warrior when you know how to use brute force against itself. As many accomplished warrior women in history have shown in cultures like feudal Japan and Viking era Norway or Sparta. The Goblins had soldiers and warriors too. You're making the mistake of the Star Trek thing where every race on an entire planet has one culture and one demeanor. WOW in a way celebrates this and does it intentionally, but it also explores nuance in areas. It's admittedly a precarious aesthetic balance.

Gnomes are deadly as rogues and among the most skilled, as are goblins, making them great candidates for Frost DKs with the enhanced strength granted by Arthas' resurrection and imbuement of power and the compulsion for violence and suffering. Think of them more like Lemurs or smaller chimps than humans with extreme dwarfism. Hominid strength is interesting and varied in a wide range of smaller species. A chimp is half our size but ten times as strong with the way their muscles connect and attach to their skelatature, their compound jaw muscles robbing them of valuable brain space giving them the ability to bite faces off or chew wood. Their longer arm span and connections to their pectorals and other regions give them the ability to rip your arms from their sockets. Forget the jaws and focus on the nimble acrobatics and maneuverability putting humans to shame. As much as people like to mock the Yoda fight scene, were he in his prime that is an actually accurate approximation of how a small sentient hominid of that build could fight without all the unnecessary flourish. Ninja Scroll the anime showed this best with the tiny old man/spy and his fighting style in a cartoon world of cartoon physics.

I love cartoon physics and cartoon worlds, and it's a shame that these actual real world examples and other precedents can be overlooked so easily. But it's perfectly understandable.

ALSO Sorry if I'm interrupting a conversation here, but I came across this.

It smells like a new Belf Model, it tastes like a new Belf Model...

EDIT: Wayback machine tells me that this particular image didn't exist until after Blizzcon, take that as you will.

MOHAWKS FOR EVERYONE @_@!!!!

as for the blood elf, its hard for me to tell but if its new i think its unfinished. the hair definitely looks new

"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon